


Losing Game

by MellytheHun



Series: The Deadlights Zine Series [7]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, Character Study, Fear, Friendship, Friendship is Magic, Internalized Homophobia, Love, M/M, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Meta, Originally Posted Elsewhere, Prophetic Visions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 04:14:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29835849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MellytheHun/pseuds/MellytheHun
Summary: Richie, fatal in the Deadlights.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: The Deadlights Zine Series [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1862683
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	Losing Game

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE READ THE TRIGGER WARNINGS
> 
> TW: blood, gore, violence, hate crimes, grief, disturbing imagery, graphic violence, internalized homophobia, fear, ANGST, mention of physical illness, death, descriptions of death, murder, dismemberment, corpses
> 
> Title inspired by the song 'Arcade,' by Duncan Laurence.

**Richie**

Something smells rotten, but also sort of sugary, or sweet, like candied meat gone bad, and whatever it is, it makes Richie want to gag. It's a thick smell, the kind of scent that gets stuck in the back of his throat. It's a bad omen.

He looks around for whatever whatever hazardous material is the source of the smell, but rather than seeing that he’s too near a dumpster or something, he finds himself surrounded by funhouse mirrors in a cylindrical room.

None of the fun mirrors are particularly fun, though.

It’s just his reflection, repeated over, and over.

He looks around, and around, but - it’s just him. No distortions, nothing out of proportion, or wavy, or squished. He doesn't get it.

“Can a funhouse mirror even get busted?” he wonders aloud approaching one more closely.

He goes to reach out to that reflection, maybe to tap on the glass, figure out if it's double-sided or what, but it's then that he sees his hand is gloved in something off-white, and frilly.

Thunderstruck, Richie stares down at his hand, horror mounting in his chest; he looks down at his body, and he recognizes the suit he's got on, he recognizes the frills, the lace, the red, puffy buttons, and he panics, he looks back into the mirrors, and sees now that they’re windows. They were perhaps always windows, and never mirrors, but that wouldn't make sense either. Nothing about this makes sense.

From his chosen window, Richie is looking outside a residential home, out onto the street, where all the Losers (minus Eddie) are standing, dirty, and bloodied. He remembers this too, he recognizes the street, and what everyone is wearing, and why he is so upset. He sees himself with Bill at the center of the group, he sees himself screaming at Bill, gesticulating wildly, cursing at him, and Bill isn’t saying anything about the costume.

It’s as if Bill doesn’t even see the costume at all, he’s not noticing the costume, he isn't noticing how Richie's fingers become bladed claws, and he isn’t noticing Richie’s eyes turning yellow, and this time, after he’s done screaming about how Eddie nearly died, how Ben is hurt, how Georgie is dead - when Richie pushes Bill, his hands go  _ through _ Bill’s chest, and when Bill's flesh gives there's the sound of a balloon popping, his bones creak as Richie spreads them, and Richie screams at his nightmare reflection to stop. 

It can't be him that did this, he knows, because that's not how he remembers anything happening, and he would never hurt Bill like that, but even so, he somehow feels the blood and gore on his own hands, his real hands, but every time he tears at the gloves on them, another layer of them appears. He can't take off the fucking costume, it just stays on him, soaked, filthy, and sticky like dried blood.

Queasy, he looks away from where Bill is gurgling on his own blood, and he finds himself looking at another mirror, another window, and this time, he sees himself cornering Stan.

He’s cornering Stan outside the synagogue, telling a shitty joke while Stan cries quietly, and Richie remembers this too, though he doesn't remember closing in on Stan this way. 

Stan doesn’t notice the costume either, same as Bill didn't, he doesn’t notice the white, chalky paint on Richie’s face, the red slits around his eyes, and then Stan looks into those cursed eyes, loses himself in their golden glow, and the Richie in the mirror - his face _splits open_ , full of teeth like thorns, and spinning, unnatural lights, and Richie shuts his eyes before he can see his reflection do something unspeakable to Stan. He still hears it, though. He hears the dull crunch of what must be flesh and ligaments being chewed up.

Just as he’s thinking to himself that he absolutely will not open his eyes again until the nightmare is over, Richie hears Bowers laughing, and that prompts him to open his eyes again, look into a different mirror, and that’s where he sees Mike.

He sees Mike being beaten up by the creek, the place where they met, but this time, it’s just Richie there to defend him, none of the other Losers are around. Even so, Richie picks up big rocks, his aim is perfect, and he chases Bowers and his cronies away all by himself, and that’s well and good, Richie even begins to like this reflection, but then he’s stoning Mike.

At first, Mike was looking up at him like he was an Angel, like a friend, and a protector, and he was stunned by the first rock that hit him, but now he sees the danger promised to him.

Mike is trying to get away, and Richie is pleading with his reflection to please stop, to leave Mike alone, but the rocks keep coming, faster, and harder, breaking the skin and veins by Mike’s eyes until they both lose all the white in them to red, breaking his teeth until there are teeth busting through the muscle of Mike's mouth and cheeks. A sharp rock gets lodged in the side of Mike's neck and blood spouts out like a fountain, stones are bruising his hands, misshaping his fingers as he lifts his hands to protect his face, the rocks are shattering against his forearms, his shoulders, his head, bashing in Mike’s skull, denting his face into horrific shapes, and then Richie hears a  _ shriek _ -

Fearfully, Richie whips around to look into another mirror, and there, it seems that Beverly was passing him a cigarette, but his hand is gripping her wrist with a white-knuckled strength. It's too much, and she's frightened of him. Richie can hear, and feel her bones grinding under the pressure, and she’s looking at him helplessly, clearly wondering why he’s doing this to her, there’s something even being said, something like “Richie, please, please stop, Richie, it hurts, Richie -” - Richie’s reflection opens his red, drooling mouth, and takes her entire hand off with a nauseating squelch. 

Convinced he’s about to throw up, Richie turns away again, and only finds another mirror, where he’s left outside the pharmacy with Ben, dragging him on the asphalt to the back alley of the shops on main street. 

Richie knows this place in time just as well as all the others, but he doesn’t see Eddie, Stan, or Bill around, and then the him in the mirror is taking out his own Swiss Army knife, and flaying Ben alive from sternum to groin. 

He pushes Ben down, sits on him. cuts open his shirt, and then drives the knife down as far as it will go into Ben's clavicle; Ben tries swatting at him, tries fighting him off, but every time he does, Richie’s reflection goes to bite his arms, cutting them up with inhuman fangs, leaving them shredded and useless.

Richie is gripping at his hair by the roots, losing his voice screaming at whatever powers that be to make this stop, but his reflection doesn't stop for anything, or anyone. 

The reflection stabs Ben so deep, and so hard, that the knife breaks part way down Ben's sternum; in the mirror, Richie discards it, and takes to doing the work by his hands. His fingers curl around the open sleeve he's made in Ben, and he rips Ben open, smiling manically as Ben emits an inhuman, excruciating howl.

That smell of blood and viscera is permeating everything now, Richie can taste it, he can feel it, it's crawling inside him like worms in a corpse. He tries to turn away from the smell of gore coming from Ben’s open torso, and he sees into another mirror where Bill is again, but Bill isn’t alive anymore, he’s floating in the quarry, eviscerated, and Richie’s reflection is still ripping him apart, squeezing organs in his fist until they burst, and pop like balloons while Bill’s unseeing, glazed eyes stare in immortalized terror up at the sky.

Frightened again, Richie turns again, to another mirror, and he sees himself plucking out Stan's teeth as his mouth fills with blood, and he wails in agony; he turns away again, and he sees himself digging in Mike's back, pulling his spine up and out. He turns away again, nauseous, out of breath, looking in another mirror where Beverly is sobbing and pleading with him to stop as she tries to low army-crawl away from him, but her legs are twisted in all the wrong directions, and Richie's coming for her foot that's hanging by a thread of exposed muscle - he can't look anymore - he twists and sees himself disemboweling Ben in broad daylight, then he sees himself chewing and swallowing Stan's arm as he looks on in abject terror, and he's sure he's going to faint, he can't take anymore of this -

Eddie laughs.

Terrified, Richie whips around yet again to see Eddie in the mirror, and it’s - it’s normal.

He’s not a clown in the reflection anymore.

He’s his normal self, and Eddie is laughing at something he’s said, pushing his shoulder playfully, but holding onto his shirt sleeve, as if Richie would ever actually go away. It's something painfully cute he does when they're getting along especially well.

_ “What if he knew?” _

“Don’t,” Richie breathes out, eyes welling up, “Don’t tell him.”

_ “Why not? It could be a real dream come true, Richie!” _

Richie goes to object, to beg for anything but this, to please just let him go, or kill him because he needs to be released from this Hell somehow, but it’s too late; his mirror self is clearly telling Eddie something important; they’re both sort of red, and mirror Richie can’t look him in the eye anymore.

When it’s clear he’s done saying whatever he needed to say, Richie’s reflection starts picking at blades of grass, nervous, clearly.

The Eddie in the mirror stares at his Richie for a beat, then drapes his hand over Richie's in the grass, leans in, drawing his Richie’s attention back in, and tentatively kisses him. 

Eddie kisses him on the lips, all timid, and still unsure of his welcome, even though mirror Richie clearly just bared his soul to him.

In a flurry, Richie is leaning them down in the grass, kissing Eddie like crazy, kissing him all over his face, smiling against him, feeling Eddie smile back, they’re laughing nervously against each other, and then - a dark flash - it goes by so fast, Richie doesn’t know what it is he sees.

He and Eddie are still making out in the grass, still gentle, and happy, and the dark flash happens again, except Richie is pretty sure he sees eyes in it this time - then the sunlight again, and how it bounces off the tall grass is bright, and a little blinding, and then the flash happens again, and stutters to a halt, and Richie sees Eddie’s pulverized face, dark with bruises, and blood, his eyes are open, but they’re swollen, soaked in red, he hears Bowers laughing, and he’s about to scream, but then it’s sunshine again.

His heart is pounding, he’s looking around at the other mirrors, and he sees Bill shouting at him, something like ‘how could you let this happen?!’ and there’s Beverly crying into her hands, then there’s Stan telling him, ‘I thought you were smarter than this, you asshole, I thought you’d fucking keep your hands to yourself!’ - there’s Sonia Kaspbrak, she’s swelled up with tears, she looks livid, and deathly all at once, and she’s glaring at Richie, telling him, ‘I knew you’d do this, I knew you were filth!’

Ben won’t meet his eyes, Mike’s there with his grandfather who’s got his hat in his hands, saying something like, ‘you see how this town is, Mike. You see the danger now?’ - and Richie’s mother is shaking in his father’s arms, and his father is muttering something to her about how they never could have known, patrol cars are lit up, and the cops are there - even Bowers’ dad, and he’s looking up and down in an assessing type of way, and Richie follows his gaze, sees Eddie hanging from a tree, beaten beyond recognition, and he  _ screams _ -

They’re in the sunlight, smiling, blushing, laughing, and Richie is kissing Eddie's cheek, the turn of his jaw, down Eddie’s neck, and he howls at his reflection to stop, to stop touching Eddie, it’s not safe, something bad will happen to Eddie, he’s gonna get Eddie killed -

And then it’s Eddie’s face again, blackened like ash with cool, still blood sitting below his mottled skin, his eyes are milky white, unseeing, his limbs are all disjointed, jagged bone is sticking out in different places, there are flies poking holes in his body as it sways in the daylight, and it’s Richie’s fault, it’s Richie’s fault, it’s Richie’s fault -

Out in the field, the summer sun is still shining brightly as he kisses Eddie’s neck, sucks a hickey there while Eddie's hands pet his upper arms in encouragement; then mirror Richie opens his fanged mouth, his glistening teeth dragging over the sun-kissed skin there, and he bites down hard, and tears into Eddie’s flesh, pulling away with a fragment of Eddie's artery stuck between his teeth, and Richie finally collapses to his knees, shaking from head to toe, knocking off his glasses in his haste to blind himself from the mirrors.

_ “What's wrong, Trashmouth? Can’t take a joke?” _

When he peels his hands away from his eyes, Pennywise is in the mirror, smiling from ear to ear.

_ “We’re not so different now, are we? We're both just hungry, after all.” _

Tears are already streaming down his face, though he can’t remember why.

Eddie is pulling away from him, and his lips are tingling in this very telling way.

Without looking directly at each one of them individually, he knows all of his friends are there, that his rescue team has arrived, and that he'll be safe now. They're in his periphery, waiting for a sign that it's okay to hug him, or touch him.

He feels filthy - filthy in a way that he doesn't know will wash off.

He stares down at Eddie, the way that Eddie looks up at him is adorably defiant, as if he's ready to fight Richie about having kissed him, and Richie has never wanted anything more than to lean down and taste Eddie one more time.

He wonders why confessing that just to himself feels like the most dangerous admission he could ever make.


End file.
